Philippe Katerine – Zouzou (Top Albums 2024)

Music seduces us for different reasons. Here, I’d like to thank Philippe Katerine for reducing my international political angst with this playful, self-deprecating, unpretentious but oh-so-effective offering.

With the election of Donald Trump and the rightward turn that is becoming generalized in our societies, I anguish and rage. While I understand that the elites have failed and deserve to be punished, I find it hard to understand how individualism and every man for himself can solve everything. Not to mention the use of immigrants as scapegoats for all our problems…

In this context, Philippe Katerine and his Zouzou did me a world of good. He’d already made me howl with laughter at the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics last summer. With Zouzou, which refers to the name of his dog, we enter the world of a 56-year-old man, who reflects on the life he has left with a great deal of humor. The song “Que deviens-tu?” is addressed to his penis, which is no longer what it used to be…to music by Bach. In “Comme disait ma petite Soeur,” he concludes: “When there’s no solution, there’s no problem. But at the same time, he manages to evoke the world’s problems, such as climate change and gentrification. A conscious, mocking, and assertive sense of humor. When he talks about his paunch, many aging men, like me, will recognize themselves. Younger men, you’re in for a treat. And what about “Nu,” the song played at the Olympic Games: “When you’re naked, you can’t fight a war”. Not bad… 

Musically, this album doesn’t reinvent music, but there’s a lot of creativity in the arrangements. “Sous la Couette” features a lovely guitar solo. Philippe Katerine also makes room for his daughter, Edie, who seems to have a lot of vocal potential. Basically, this is an album that reflects the anxious yet humorous daily life of a French citizen who knows how to tell the zeitgeist.

Merci Philippe! My tensiometer, which measures my blood pressure, is infinitely grateful to you. What if people on the right listened to you as well?